I Took The Path Less Traveled By: Tamarack Trail (Red Rock to Rowe) August 8-9, 2014

This was my very first overnight hikes (where you pack in all your food and gear) and I decided to do it with my two oldest kids. I had just bought a backpacking tent and this was its first real usage. We got our permit at the Park and headed from Red Rock canyon on August 8 a little later than I had planned but we hiked that night to the Lone Lake Campground and stayed there that night then got up the next morning and hiked the remainder of the hike over the Lineham Ridge and down into the row meadow. It was a good couple of days of hiking and for the most part the kids didn't complain. The views were spectacular and the company (my kids) was great. These are the type of things I hope my kids will look back on and remember forever, because I certainly will. We had a pretty weird experience with this hiker who got lost. We were heading up to the high point of the hike the 2nd day just before what I call Lineham Ridge and we saw this lone hiker way below us coming from the valley. She got closer and was shouting for help. We stopped and asked what was wrong. She had been "trail" running and had started at Red Rock Canyon and had lost the trail. She was out of water and had been out for a few hours. We gave her some and helped her on her way but I told my kids that she was doing something very foolish! One should never hike alone like that and be as unprepared as she was. We had only seen 1 set of hikers the 24 hours preceding our encounter with her and if she had got lost there would have been no one to help her. She was probably 12 km or more from where a vehicle could get to her at this point. All in all my kids learned a good lesson that day from the foolishness of another hiker!

Beginning our journey at Red Rock Canyon with Anderson in the background, I want to look down from Anderson on day on that pointed peak!

We had a lot of snow the winter before and we had two pretty big avalanche spots covering the trail

Beautiful little stream we followed for the first while

Very green year and flowery year for hiking

This shot was taken just a few feet from our camp site looking back at Mount Anderson in the background

Better view of Anderson on left and false summit of Hawkins on right

Calm Lone Lake, hardly any wind while we were there

I promised my kids we go fishing, I'm not much of a fisher and here is the proof we actually tried, of course we caught nothing!

All the food secure for the night from any potential bears

Sunrise on day two

Beautiful view of Lone Lake morning of day 2 (See Panorama below for a google sphere picture of same shot)

Below Lone Lake in the valley below

First big climb of the day done (Festubert Mountain behind us)

Last stream we got water from till we got to Rowe meadow, and it was refreshing and cold to drink

Looking back at where we came. We came up over the saddle just right of center (Lone lake is behind that saddle)

Finally at the point of hike where we could see Lineham Lakes

Lineham Lakes with Blakiston to left and Lineham to right

Another view of Lineham Lakes

I take a lot of pictures as a reference for future hikes. This picture is to show the descend route to get down into Lineham Lakes from the Rowe Meadow Trail. You can't see it very well but that is where you descend to get into the Lineham Lakes Valley. The other route is to scale the Lineham Cliff.

This is from the high point of the hike overlooking the Lineham Lakes

Kids on the high point of hike, from this picture you can see the ridge to the right isn't as bad to descend to the Lineham Lakes as the other pictures